Life Story: People Are Scared Of Us, And I Don’t Know Why

“People are scared of us, and I don’t know why. Maybe because we are different, but we don’t want to be shunned the way we are all the time. We may seem scary, but we are soft at heart, we don’t want to hurt or scare anyone.”
“How did you know you were a transgender?”
“In our community, most of the time we don’t get a chance to decide for ourselves. The moment we start showing some feminine behavior or ways, the guru or the head of the transgender community takes us under her… wing and then teaches us the ways of being what we are today. It was like I didn’t have a chance to choose what I wanted to do, this was my destiny.”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Yes, I have a boyfriend, that too from outside our community. Usually on the streets people keep hitting on me and asking me for my number, but they just want to do time pass. So, when they give me their number or something, I smile, take it, and come home and tear it up. But I have one serious boyfriend and he’s a good person.”
“How do you react to peoples’ bad comments, if and when you get them?”
“People keep passing comments all the time. But how many people can you even get angry with? I just crack a joke or something and let it go. If I take all the comments seriously, I won’t be happy. But I’d still like to tell people that even though we are different from most of you, we are still humans. We, too, want to be loved and accepted just like anyone else in the world. So maybe you should think twice before insulting us.”
“What is your advice for youngsters struggling with this issue in our society?”
“Now things are much better than they were. I just want to tell them not to live life the way I’m living. We are called to dance in marriages and we roam around in the streets, so we do earn decent money, but these young people can do so much more with their life. They can study, get a job, live the life they want. I hope they have the courage to accept themselves for who they are, no matter what people say.”

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Partner Story

Be A True Ally To The Women In Your Life #ShareTheLoad

Women empowerment is one of the most important words of the present times. It is not a mere phrase but it rather represents a movement, which has been pending for the longest time. However, many have a misconception that educating women, “letting” them work, etc. is all that women empowerment is all about. However, the concept of women empowerment is more of an umbrella term. It intends to involve society as a whole, including men.

We always encourage and applaud a woman who successfully balances both work life and her household. But won’t it be easy for that woman if the load of the work is shared? We see that in our society a woman’s primary role is seen as that of a homemaker. At the same time, her personal likes, aspirations, and dreams are forced to be put on the backburner because of the undue expectation that she has to single handedly manage the household while balancing her career. To give credit where it is due, the times are changing. Men and women of the house are increasingly sharing the workload. However, one can also not turn a blind to the fact that a lot more still needs to be done.

Driving home the same concept, popular brand Ariel has come up with brilliant communication.

The video shows a mother speaking to her married daughter over the phone, all whilst cleaning the mess her son has created. She is absolutely heartbroken when her daughter says that she plans to quit her job since juggling both a demanding job and her household has become too overwhelming. It is during this time that she realises that while she and her husband as parents left no stone unturned to give an all-round upbringing to their daughter, they somewhere forgot to teach their son some basic life skills like cooking and doing laundry so that they grow out to be equally responsible in doing household chores. This is not a story of just one family, but of families across the country. These are some things which everyone must know, not for any other reason, but simply because these are basic tasks which are absolutely essential to survive. And, they make you capable to be equal partners tomorrow!

As Ariel raises an important question-is household work only a woman’s job? We need to ask ourselves the same question. A recent study revealed that the unpaid work done by women around the world amounted to 43 times the annual turnover of Apple Inc. It is high time we share the load and change the narrative that household work is the “duty” of a woman. As the video shows, contributing to the household work is not only a daughter’s work, but the son must contribute his bit too. It is also important for the parents to instil a sense of responsibility in their children, irrespective of their gender so that at any juncture of their lives, they are not completely dependent on another person for basic tasks like these. Ariel has been consistently driving this message and addressing the inequality within households since 2015. The Logical Indian applauds Ariel for coming up with such a brilliant video for depicting such an important concept.